Android versions on different moblies

Here is an initial overview of Android based mobile phones and which version of Android they are running (shipped, official update, community update)

Mobile phone	Android shipped	official update	community update	Comments
Android Dev Phone 1 / HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1	1.0, 1.1	1.1, 1.5, 1.6	2.2.1, 2.3.7	Update HBoot to 1.3.0033d and Radio to 2.22.28.25 for more available RAM
HTC Desire	2.1	2.2, 2.3.3	2.3.7, 4.1.2, 4.2.2	Use A2SD for more app-storage
HTC Hero / T-Mobile G2	1.5	2.1	2.3.7
HTC Magic	1.5, 1.6	2.2.3	2.2.1, 2.3.7	Update HBoot to 1.3.0033d and Radio to 2.22.28.25
LG GW620	1.5	1.6, 2.2.1	2.2.1, 2.3.7, 2.3.7	...
Motorola Milestone	2.0	2.1	2.3.4	...
Samsung Galaxy Spica I5700	1.5, 2.1	2.1	2.3.4	...

A more complete list of Android devices you can find on Wikipedia.

Install the latest and greatest on your HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1

Before we start create a backup of your data! Better be save than sorry! :)

In the first step we have to install an older version of Android on the phone. For the european G1 an RC7 (US: RC29) version of DREAIMG.nbh will do it. This version has a bug we need, to get root access on the phone, so that we can flash a new radio-firmware, the DangerSPL (new partition size for the system from 64MB to 96MB), a recovery image (for example from Amon_Ra) and new Android-Versions like Android 2.2 (CyanogenMod).

So we need the following software on the SD-Card:
a) DREAIMG.nbh RC7 (US: RC29)
b) Amon_Ra 1.7.0 Dream
c) Newest Radio-Firmware - 2.22.19.26i for Non US (US TMobile: 2.22.23.02)
d) DangerSPL
e) CyanogenMod

You can find a very good guide, with the necessary links for the software listed above, for the hole process on the CyanogenMod-Wiki.

1) To install the DREAIMG.nbh RC7, which is an image of Android 1.0, you need to reformat the SD-Card to a fat32 partition. Copy the DREAIMG.nbh to the root of the SD-Card. Turn off the phone. Hold the camera button pressed and press the power button. When the phone is in the bootloader mode it should start checking the DREAIMG.nbh and then start the flash-process.

1 a) With T-Mobile G1 from Austria I got the following error from the bootloader:
Not Allow
00028002

If you encounter also this error than you have to generate a goldcard. For that you will find a guide here. You will need the CID of the SD-Card. You can find it with the ASTRO File Manager. Open the App and go to /sys/class/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:aaaa (aaaa could be a different string aswell). Long press on the cid file and choose 'open as text'. Write down this number somewhere and then revert it pairwise (for example 125a00 -> 005a12).

1 b) You have to enter the reverted number on this homepage. Now you will receive a goldcard.img via email, save it on your computer. Now you have to apply this goldcard.img to the MBR of the SD-Card with:
dd bs=512 if=/path/to/goldcard.img of=/dev/sd[x]
... where /dev/sd[x] stands for the SD-Card.

Now you are able to flash the old Andoid 1.0 DREAIMG.nbh.

2) Now we want root access. To get it we have to open the keyboard and press Enter twice. Now type 'telnetd' and press enter. You will get no response but you now started the telnet deamon. Now go to Market and search for telnet and install Telnet from ClockworkMod. Start it and connect to localhost on port 23.

3) Now it is time to install Amon_Ra's recovery image, For that copy the recovery-RA-dream-1.7.0-cyan.img to the SD-Card and rename it to 'recovery.img' - to install it type the following into the terminal:
flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery.img

If you get the 'file not found' message reboot the phone without the USB cable connected and then try again.

4) After installing the recovery image you can now boot into recovery mode holding the home button and pressing the power button till the recovery screen appears. Now install the newest radio image (2.22.19.26i) and after a reboot install the DangerSPL. It is important to keep this order, first radio then DangerSPL.

5) After rebooting into the recovery image you can now install the CyanogenMod 6 or the nightly builds. Before you should wipe all data and cache.

Problems after Proxmox update to v1.5

After the update of Proxmox to version 1.5 and a reboot of the host all virtual qemu server (using KVM) where not booting up. It does not matter if it is a Windows XP or Windows 7, they stop there:

Starting SeaBIOS ( Version ......)

gPXE (htt://....) - 00:03.0 C900 PCI2.10 Pnp BBS PMM7FE0@10 C900

Press F12 for boot menu

So also trying to boot from CD-ROM will not help in that case. After some search on the web i found the solution in the Proxmox forum.

So the System was missing some packages, you can easily solve this with:

aptitude update && aptitude upgrade && aptitude install proxmox-ve-2.6.24

After reboot if you enter

# pveversion -v

you should find there the actual packages which correspond together. At the time of writing:
# pveversion -v
pve-manager: 1.5-10 (pve-manager/1.5/4822)
running kernel: 2.6.24-11-pve
proxmox-ve-2.6.24: 1.5-23
pve-kernel-2.6.24-11-pve: 2.6.24-23
pve-kernel-2.6.24-8-pve: 2.6.24-16
qemu-server: 1.1-16
pve-firmware: 1.0-5
libpve-storage-perl: 1.0-13
vncterm: 0.9-2
vzctl: 3.0.23-1pve11
vzdump: 1.2-5
vzprocps: 2.0.11-1dso2
vzquota: 3.0.11-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 0.12.4-1

Install the latest and greatest on your Motorola Milestone

Before we start do a backup of your data! Better be save than sorry! :)

1) To backup the data on a Motorola Milestone you need to have a recovery version which is vulnerable. If your phone still has Android 2.0 or 2.0.1 you are on the right side.

If you already have Android 2.1 you need to downgrade just the vulnerable recovery partition of the 2.0.1 version (from SHOLS_U2_01.14.0). Therefore you normally needed access to a (virtualized) Windows-PC, install there RSD Lite (4.6.0) and the Motorola USB Drivers (4.6.5) or use a software for flashing sbf on Linux, sbf_flash, here.

The recovery image is in the SBF format, normally RSD Lite only was able to flash it. Shut down the Milestone, hold the up-button on the keyboard and turn it on again. Now connect the USB-cable, start RSD Lite and select the vulnerable recovery SBF file or under Linux type as root ./sbf_flash [sbf-file].sbf - Now flash it. :)

2) We are now able to start a update.zip with no signature. You just have to place the Open Recovery (1.46) (or Androidiani OpenRecovery for Milestone 3.3) on the SD-Card. Now turn of the Milestone, hold the Camera button pressed and turn it on again. When the warning symbol appears, you have to hold the volume up key also, then release the camera button and shortly afterwards the volume up. Maybe you need to repeat the key pressing till it works. When the recovery menu appears select update.zip - finally you can do a nandroid backup!

3) Alternatively you can flash now a fully prepared SBF f.e. from G.O.T. and flash it.

4) If you want with Open Recovery you can also root the device, overclock it and so on...

5) And if you want to run Android 2.2 or 2.3 on your Motorola Milestone you can download CyanogenMod 6.1.2/7 for Milestone from here. :)

Install the latest and greatest on your HTC Hero

Before we start do a backup of your data! Better be save than sorry!

To update the GSM version of the HTC Hero (also known as T-Mobile G2) you first have to get the following:

1) flashrec - flashes the recovery partition to Android devices (works with Android 1.5, sources and development here), newest version by the time of writing: flashrec-1.1.3-20091107-2.apk
2) RA-hero Recovery ROM - important for nandroid backup, wipe and flash, actual version: RA-Hero-v1.6.2
3) New Radio-Firmware - for a better connection - newest version: 63.18.55.06OU_6.35.15.01
4) A custom ROM - like VillainROM, SenseHero (development here) or MoDaCoROM - there are more out there! ;)

Now we are copying this files to the root of the SD-Card on your HTC Hero. With a Filemanager capable of running .apk's (for example Linda File Manager) we install flashrec from our SD-Card. After that we run flashrec, make the recovery and then insert /sd-card/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img - now press the button below.

Turn of the mobile. When you restart the mobile first hold the Home-Button (and turn on the phone) and keep Home pressed until you are on the Recovery Screen. Here you should first make a nandroid backup, then flash the Radio. After that reboot it and start Android - see, if everything is still working ;)

When you restart into the recovery mode you should now make a wipe (also from dalvik cache) - this will delete all your personal data (except from SD-Card). Now flash the Custom ROM of your choice and reboot. This may take a while, so be patient! Now enjoy your new firmware! :)

Efika SmartFirmware 1.3 20070122 Update

Just found a OpenFirmware update for the Efika5k2 board with version number 1.3 and build on 2007-01-22 here. Normaly your board should have this build date (20070122), but there is also a 1.3 version with this build date: 20061107.

To check which version you have you have to enter the following on the openfirmware:

1) cd /
2) cd /openprom
3) .properties
4) look at the build-on value

To install the new version you have to get the file and enter the following like described on the site:

1) Put the extracted file onto a USB-Stick and insert it into the Efika PPC
2) Type on the openfirmware promt "boot scsi:0 update_e_20070122"

Efika PPC board battery problems

My Efika board had a quite long time no power supply, so the onboard battery (CR2032, 3V) was empty when i tried to install the brand new MorphOS 2.5. So i got a wrong MAC address, the date was in the year 2105, and so on... Also registering MorphOS (application under MorphOS-Partition:Tools) will not work correctly (the personal Key-File is bound to the MAC address).

The solution was simple:
1) Power down the Efika5k2
2) Remove empty Battery and wait for a few seconds
3) Power up Efika and stop on the openfirmware SmartFirmware
4) cd /
5) cd /builtin/ethernet
6) .properties
7) There you see the original MAC address - write it down, just in case
8) boot
9) After MorphOS booted open a new shell and check the MAC with ifconfig
10) If the MAC is ok insert a new CR2032 Battery into the running system, if not, repeat from step 1).